


a lamb to the slaughter

by jdphoenix



Series: a lamb [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Dark, F/M, Hydra Jemma Simmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 05:50:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17954774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: He smiles, sharp and easy, his handsome face turned menacing by the simple expression. “Why are you whoring yourself out to me?”





	a lamb to the slaughter

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [a lamb for a rose](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10521147) by [jdphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix). 



> Like it says, this is an AU of my fic 'a lamb for a rose' but you don't need to read that to understand this. Just know that Hive went back in time and started taking over the world and you're good to go.
> 
> Also, be aware of the "dark" tag on this. I've got a spoilery warning in the end tag in regards to what, exactly, I feel people might be blindsided by, but if you're used to my fic I have written similar before.

Jemma’s just taken her seat in another boring progress meeting on the terrigen when he walks in. The god.

Three weeks she’s been at this base, working in the heart of the empire on their most important projects, and this is the first she’s seen of him. He’s young, is her first thought. But of course he’s immortal, what’s young for him is ancient from her perspective. He’s also looking right at her.

She can feel that gaze—and not just because it’s true, as everyone warned her before her transfer, that the god has a _presence_ ; he’s sizing her up. Though his objects are the same as so many mortal men’s (dropping to her stomach, circling her breasts, settling on her face), she has the queer impression he’s truly taking notice of  _her_ , the woman beneath it all. What he sees seems to satisfy him and he asks that they all be seated so that the meeting may begin.

In what ends up being a three hour meeting, his perusal of her lasts barely a few seconds. It’s the only part she cares about.

 

\-----

 

There are hands in Jemma’s hair, tearing it free of the careful coif she perfected this morning, and the desk at her back is pressing painfully into her bum. All in all, things seem to be progressing quite well. She whimpers and angles her hips upward, a request for a more productive orientation.

In answer, he steps back. She wavers without his support and quickly checks her instinctive move to follow him. No matter how badly she wants to or how her body insists she press it to his once more, _he_ has put a stop to their evolving tryst. She can’t counteract that.

“What are you doing here?” he asks in the same tone of voice with which he ordered his guards to leave just a few minutes ago. But then why would he be affected? He is a _god_. There’s no reason a simple kiss would leave him reeling.

Still, she can’t help that the sting of rejection tangles her tongue. “I- I mean, you-” She takes a steadying breath. “You called me to your office,” she reminds him. “For an update on the terrigen.”

He smiles, sharp and easy, his handsome face turned menacing by the simple expression. “Why are you whoring yourself out to me?” he clarifies. There’s no malice in the question, no insult in that hateful word. But she thinks that makes it worse.

“I am not _whoring myself out_. _You_ kissed _me_.”

He reaches out to tuck a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. The way he was holding her earlier, it must be a complete mess. “I did,” he acknowledges. “After you made it clear you wanted me to.”

“I didn’t-” She stops herself because that line of reasoning, in addition to being completely inaccurate, is deadly.

He doesn’t seem to mind. His eyes drop to her chest—specifically to the cleavage exposed by the button she undid on her way to the elevator—and then lifts them back to her face in challenge. “Didn’t you?”

She shivers for all the wrong reasons. She knew this was a dangerous game when she set out to play it. There are rumors, of course, about why their most revered leader is never seen with a lover on his arm. Some say the Inhumans who so loyally serve him are all the companionship he needs in that arena. Others whisper that perhaps he devours his lovers as he does his enemies when he no longer has use for them. The more tactful, those who will speak of it at all, say that he is above such mortal concerns as carnal pleasure.

After their first encounter a month ago, Jemma decided it would be too much of a waste if that last were true—he is such a beautiful man, putting any heathen god of antiquity to shame, that she refused to consider it a possibility—and the rest she brushed aside with all the self-assurance of a woman who has always got what she set out to take. But now, wrapped up in the chill that has replaced the warmth of his embrace, she begins to fear she might have miscalculated just this once.

She doesn’t dare hope he steps nearer out of concern for her shivering, not when the move is so plainly menacing. “Why,” he asks again, “are you here?”

He watches his fingers still playing in her hair rather than her face. Every so often he brushes the sensitive skin of her neck. The intimate move sends ripples through her and her core aches with longing. It’s an unsettling feeling, not only because he may very well be considering whether to snap her neck and be done with her. She’s usually in more control than this. Just two months ago she spent hours in her HR manager’s bed, allowing the insufferable woman to use her however she pleased, and her every moan and cry was completely fabricated. She wasn’t affected at all.

Is it him? He’s attractive, no doubt, and surely, if anyone could draw a real reaction from her, it would be _him_. But while she was briefly transported by the kiss, she was still aware of her purposes here.

So no, she thinks as his palm wraps around the back of her neck, it isn’t only the admiration she feels for him physically. He’s taken control from her. No one else has ever managed to do so. Her superior officer might think it was his idea to ask her to stay late for a private discussion of her work ethic, but she pinpointed that particular night weeks in advance and came to work clad in an easily accessible skirt with no knickers. Finding herself now outmaneuvered and outclassed is, surprisingly (though perhaps it shouldn’t be), a turn-on.

Hell of a time to learn such a thing about herself.

“I could summon Vesta,” he says mildly, sending all thoughts of arousal right out of her. But he knows it for the threat it is and is ready to catch her when she flinches violently. “Would you care to see what truths she pulls from you?”

“No,” she says, ashamed of the way her voice shakes. “Please, no.”

Vesta is one of his Inhumans and one of the few kept in isolation due to the dangerous nature of her powers. Anyone unlucky enough to find themselves in her presence will soon be compelled to share their secrets. That lie you told under interrogation, the time you allowed a coworker to be blamed for your mistake, the exaggeration from your resume, and on and on and on until you’re sobbing in shame, telling the forgotten childhood tale of how you stole a sweet meant for your brother.

“Then tell me why you’re here,” he says. His hand is on her hip, his thumb pressing firmly and sending a corresponding jolt of want across her stomach with every pass. She finds herself gripping his arms to keep her balance as her desire wars with her fear and the two drive each other higher.

“Jemma,” he says. It’s the first time he’s spoken her given name. Normally she would analyze his tone to determine her chances of success with him. Now, she doesn’t dare waste the thoughts. He sighs, disappointed. “It has been far too long since I brought Vesta into my presence…”

“No!” She tightens her grip and is grateful for the heavy coat he wears that saves her from being executed for scratching her god.

Again, she hesitates, but this time he waits, content that she will answer his question.

She wishes she knew the answer to his question.

“You noticed me,” she says, deciding it’s best to start at the beginning. “Last month, in that meeting on our progress with the terrigen.”

“Did I.” It isn’t precisely a question, but she answers it anyway.

“I know when a man takes notice of me.”

“So you decided to make a conquest of me?” His hand is inching around her back, moving just past her spine. She doesn’t know how to read it. She doesn’t know that she wants to.

“I decided to take advantage of the opportunity,” she corrects firmly.

He smiles. “Not much better, sunshine.” She bristles at the nickname, but he goes on. “Why though? Surely you must have known it would be dangerous to invite more of my ‘notice.’”

“It’s always dangerous.” There’s always the risk that her paramour of choice will turn the tables on her, but she’s grown adept at planning for all such possibilities.

Something in his eyes shifts and his grip on her goes somehow slack and firm all at once. “You do this often?”

She doesn’t know why he’s surprised when he’s the one who called her a whore. She lifts her chin, refusing to be ashamed. “I use every resource at my disposal to get what I want. Is there something wrong with that?”

He tips his head to one side as if sizing her up for the first time. “You’re a brilliant young woman, by far the smartest scientist working in this facility. What in your life has made you venture down this path?”

The praise warms her—she can’t remember the last time someone said something so kind about her, and without ulterior motive too—but the question takes her aback. The phrasing itself strikes her as odd and it’s unspeakably personal, but she supposes to a god, his followers can have no thoughts so personal they would be withheld from him.

“My aunt taught me to take care of myself,” she says.

“Your aunt?” His hand at her back has begun moving again, now in a gentle path up and down her spine. It warms her as much as his estimation of her intelligence.

“My parents died in the European conquest,” she says carefully, not wanting him to think she harbors any resentment on that score. “My father’s sister raised me.”

“And taught you to use ‘every resource at your disposal.’” He studies her while she wonders whether she should respond to his blatant disapproval. “Did she use you?”

Her mouth opens, but she cannot make a sound.

“I see.”

“No!” she yells, enraged at the implication to herself and to Aunt Ellie. “She protected me.” Every so often one of Ellie’s lovers would get it in their head that Jemma might be more enjoyable. Ellie did her best to divert their attentions and, when that failed, endured no small number of beatings keeping Jemma safe. It was Jemma’s choice to, as some would so kindly put it, whore herself out. No one else made that decision for her.

“And what do you seek to gain from me?”

The question wrenches her out of past concerns and into present ones. She can only shrug and say, “Protection. Power. In all honesty, I didn’t actually have an end goal in mind. The opportunity simply seemed too good to pass up.”

The truth she doesn’t dare speak is she was drawn to him. Once he had noticed her, she wanted him to do so again. She’s always known the measure of her own beauty and how best to fashion it into a weapon for her own purposes, but to be an object of _his_ desire was something else entirely. And why shouldn’t she have pursued it when the potential rewards were so great? Who would deny the god’s former lover the funds she needed for her research? Who would dare look her over for a promotion?

“Oh, my Jemma,” he says. He rests his forehead against hers as the breath leaves her lungs. “You never cease to surprise. Though you may come to regret your designs; I will not let you go again.”

The statement makes no sense at all but, as it’s followed up by a kiss, one which quickly becomes more heated than their first, she doesn’t bother trying to work it out. She’s a little more concerned with balancing on the edge of his desk while he reaches beneath her skirt. (She is, of course, not wearing any knickers.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERY WARNING: Due to her altered backstory, Jemma routinely uses sex to advance in her career and has deadened herself to the emotional ramifications of that.


End file.
